The first season of HBO’s The Life & Times of Tim is an absolute gem. Centering on Tim, voiced by show creator Steve Dildarian, the first season was an audacious, laugh-out-loud riot. Using fairly static animation and mining a great talent for voice roles, the key to why The Life & Times Of Tim works is its writing.
In the first season Dildarian wrote all ten episodes (twenty shorts), this year he gets some help. The animation is also stepped up a bit as well and the voice talent is off the charts with “name” guest stars. They range from hot comedians such as Aziz Ansari and Judah Friedlander to acclaimed actors Alfred Molina and Philip Baker Hall.
But, judging from the three episode screener HBO sent out, the show is as audacious as ever. On tonight’s premiere episode, Tim and girlfriend Amy are separated, Tim’s job is in jeopardy when his boss feels homeless “Vince” is a better candidate and Tim gets involved with his friend Stu’s drug dealer that leads to a run-in with the law and bad theater. The bad theater experience might be worse than dealing with the police.
Dildarian promises that, on this season, things will open up to reveal more about the other characters and not be entirely predicated on Tim. It’s a good sized bit of evolving, one that doesn’t threaten to derail what made the show great to begin with.
The first season is available for purchase now. You can purchase it on Amazon here or from HBO here.
Dildarian called me last week from San Francisco, where he lives with his girlfriend (the show’s Art Director) and his German wire-haired pointer (who he takes out on a fishing boat daily to write, reflect and read). We had spoken a year ago and it was a pleasure catching up with him. Dildarian is an engaging and immensely likable person as well as incredibly talented.
Rock ‘n Roll Ghost: What are you up to today besides talking to me?
Steve Dildarian: Nothing. We wrapped production a few weeks ago, so I’m ve
ry out of my element. I’m just taking long walks and reading books and trying to figure out what I’m doing.
Can you tell me about how you were asked to do a second season?
SD: We got word after the first season wrapped. I guess they were really happy with the reviews and the fans that were into it. There weren’t huge numbers but we got a really loyal, cult following there. I was obviously excited to come back. We were lucky enough to get some more people involved and think it through a little more. Making the first season was a miracle that we even got the thing on tape and finished on time. Take what we learned and the mistakes we made and fix them.
What sort of things did you do differently and where did you decide you wanted to take it this season?
SD: A lot of the changes are small, but significant in my opinion. The drawings, we tried to make them a little more rich and nuanced and detailed. I always want the show to feel real and current to modern day New York. The animation we just stepped up just to energize it a bit. The first season was borderline too slow. I know you have to be on board for that kind of pace of a show, dialogue driven. We wanted to step up the energy just a little bit. We did that in the editing and in the animation. In the writing, not a change as much as it’s an improvement. We didn’t want to get into this rut where it’s always Tim getting into a problem. We definitely wanted to avoid that. This time around we just tried to complicate the stories ever so slightly so you don’t always see where they’re going. And to make the characters around Tim more real and have their own lives and their own problems. This year we do full episodes about Amy, about Stu, about Debbie, Rodney…we get into some of their lives. Even though Tim is in there messing things up, it’s not always his story.
Is there anything about any of these stories that have come from real life or is just the subtle details?
SD: Almost nothing comes from real life. If anything it usually starts with a point of view. I might know a pharmaceutical sales rep and I might have an opinion on that. That just seems like great fodder for comedy. It’s an idea, an opinion on a type of person. We do that a lot.
The impression that I was able to get through the episodes I’ve seen is that an evolution in his life where things are topsy-turvy. Was your idea to have a loose plot line to take the character from one place to the other?
SD: Yeah, we did a little more of that this year. Season one were pretty stand alone episodes where we didn’t serialize it at all. This year we dabbled with it. I think tying them together, re-referencing things that happened in episodes, again, working toward the end goal of feeling real. It’s not just a joke we’re servicing.
From my standpoint, it appears that no one on the show takes Tim seriously.
SD: The way that I would look at it is it’s hard for the good guy to always win. It’s hard for the right opinion to surface in a crazy world. To me that’s the thing about Tim. The world is unfair and the world will find a way to not let logic prevail. In the way I write Tim he never actively does anything wrong. If you really look at the show, moment to moment, he rarely is doing something wrong. It’s trying to say the right thing, attempting to do the right thing and then being too easily swayed. That’s really his big downfall that he doesn’t stand up for himself. The world is moving too fast. People’s opinions are strong, they have conviction and they steamroll him. It’s frustrating being constantly faced with bad logic, immoral people, bad decisions, bad motives, so Tim is always outvoted.
This year you’ve got an impressive list of guest stars. Alfred Molina, Philip Baker Hall. How did that come about?
SD: There was no plan at all. Season one we dabbled with it with a few people. And this year we asked one or two and we were just surprised that they said yes, quite frankly. And that just lead us to say, if that guy said yes, let’s ask this guy. Before you know it after three episodes or so it was just really encouraging that people like that were keen to doing our show. The fact that these actors and their agents were so willing to do it, just kind of fed on itself. It was really just a crap shoot. It just organically snowballed.
What do you while you await word on season three being picked up? Besides walking and reading books?
SD: (laughs) Walking! (laughs more). I can always start tinkering with new story ideas. You could fill up six months with that. It’s so much work to generate those germs of ideas. We’ve got some other writers. Me working with them has been a great thing. I think the show is better because of it. Season one I wrote every one of those. That’s just not in the best interest of the show. It’s too much work. It’s too single-minded of a point of view, I think. Some people do it, but for this show, me steering the ship is more important than trying to micro-manage every single word that gets spoken, you know?
The great thing is the ones that make it through, you don’t necessarily agree or don’t see the other writer’s vision for it. Then they prove me wrong. It’s an idea where I first heard it I said absolutely not, we’re never doing that so just stop telling it to me. And before you know it they keep pushing because they think it’s funny and they’ve talked me into it and it ends up being one of my favorite episodes. That to me has been the great thing watching the show evolve. For someone like me who’s never worked in TV before you’re going to learn a whole lot. Learning how to let go a little bit and encourage other points of view, whether it’s in the look of the show, the animation or the writing. Knowing when to encourage and when to discourage people is kind of the hardest thing. You’re job is to keep the creative vision intact, but it’s also to know when to turn people loose, because you don’t know what they’ll come up with.
The Life & Times of Tim airs on HBO every Friday, beginning tonight, February 19th, at 9:30PM EST.
